Photo Gallery Smile for the Dumpster!
Sanitation workers in Hamburg have created a sensation with their striking photographs taken with a dumpster converted into a pinhole camera.
Hans-Dieter Braatz positions the camera in Hamburg's Speicherstadt dockland area. The results are spectacular black-and-white images that quickly became an Internet and media sensation.
Hans-Dieter Braatz, who normally works as a truck driver for the sanitation department, took this photograph of the old docks in the port city.
Sanitation worker Roland Wilhelm had wanted to take this photograph for a long time. From a certain angle, the building looks like a film set.
Another one of Roland Wilhelm's photographs. The campaign has just won a prestigious advertising industry award.
This photograph shows Hamburg's harbor.
The light enters the front of the dumpster through an 8-millimeter (0.3-inch) pinhole and is projected onto an 80-centimeter by 1 meter (31 inches by 39 inches) piece of photographic paper inside the container.
Hamburg town hall: This is the only photograph where the dumpster was tilted.
Here, a shot the dumpster camera captured of the Hamburg Planetarium. The camera has no shutter. Instead, the exposure begins when the workers lift the small flap over the pinhole.
This photograph shows new buildings in Hamburg's prestigious HafenCity development.
Hamburg's narrow 17th-century streets are another subject.
This atmospheric photo shows a graveyard in the city's Altenwerder district.
"It's really something unique," Wilhelm told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Nobody expected it to be so successful."
Exposing a photo in the 1,100-liter (290-gallon) bin takes between five and 70 minutes. The sanitation workers calculate the exact time with the help of a light meter.
Nicole Nordt-Wulff, one of the city's few female sanitation workers, took this photograph of the town hall in Harburg, a district of Hamburg.
Sanitation worker Hans-Peter Strahl operates the flap over the pinhole.
Taking photographs with the dumpster camera was more difficult than expected. Often the garbage collectors had to stop unsuspecting passersby from throwing their garbage into the camera.
The Hamburg sanitation department is very satisfied with the project. "It couldn't have gone any better," says company spokesman Andree Möller.
This photo shows a carnival in Hamburg.
Here, the Chilehaus building in central Hamburg.
Here, the pinhole camera was put on top of a public barbecue to get a better angle.
An exhibition of the photographs begins on June 23 in the Axel Springer Passage exhibition space in Hamburg.
